Dead to Her(5)

“More wine, Virginia?” Noah refilled the glasses, wine never in short supply here, and Virginia took it gratefully. She’d had an exhausting morning at the church, she’d told them. So much to help with. Charity events to organize. She was alone; Emmett had a prior engagement with some investment client. The number of times he took meetings on Sundays was a clue to everyone bar his wife that he wasn’t as keen on prayer as Virginia. Marcie imagined that the endless hours of fund-raising and work at the homeless refuge that filled her hours could grate very quickly.

“I called you this morning, William,” Jason said. “Zelda told me you were on the treadmill.”

“She didn’t mention it.”

“It wasn’t important. But jogging? I’ve never known you to do more than stroll around the golf course.”

Jason had called William? Marcie hadn’t known that. When? Had she been in the shower? Had he hidden himself in one of the many empty rooms in their new house? Why would he need to speak to William on a Sunday morning when he knew they’d be seeing each other later? A thought curled like dark smoke. Had he been hoping Keisha would answer maybe?

“Never too late to get in shape,” William said. “My new routine. Up early, down to the treadmill, and then a coconut water to raise my energy. I tell you, I feel twenty years younger.”

“Are you sure that’s the jogging?” Iris, ever the dry wit, raised an overplucked eyebrow and glanced at Keisha.

“She sure helps,” William conceded, and everyone smiled. Marcie tried to imagine him on the running machine. It wasn’t a pretty image. The state-of-the-art home gym had been Eleanor’s and she’d used it religiously. Fat lot of good it had done her in the end.

“Do you jog too?” Marcie asked. She imagined Keisha in tight gym gear and regretted asking the question immediately. That was not an image she wanted in Jason’s mind.

“No, I’m a night owl. Nothing wakes me before ten. Sometimes even midday. But I’m trying to change. I know I’ve married an early bird.”

Marcie couldn’t imagine Keisha changing. Conforming. But then she had. It was amazing how you could contain yourself—imprison yourself—if you really tried. If you loved someone. She looked down at her sweet summer dress from that new expensive little boutique on Broughton that all the club wives loved so much. Cuff sleeves, buttons down the front, deck shoes on her feet. Six or seven years ago she’d have been wearing cutoff denim shorts that showed the curve of her ass and wouldn’t be seen dead in something as old as this. Probably why her own store had failed. She hadn’t known back then how sedately her customer base dressed. Well, that and all the bad-mouthing from Jason’s ex-wife. Marcie should have let the dust settle before trying to do something for herself. Now she was trapped in expensive cotton and reliant on her husband’s credit card.

“Although I draw the line at coconut water,” Keisha continued. “It’s disgusting. Tastes like sperm. No wonder Billy drains the carton in one go.” Iris nearly choked on her wine at that. Combined with the appalled look on William’s face and the flush on Noah’s, Marcie couldn’t help but laugh. Jason joined in and then so did Iris.

“I’m so sorry! I have no filter!”

Keisha clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes suddenly nervous as they glanced at William. For a moment he looked like he might implode and then, seeing that his friends weren’t offended, his face relaxed slightly into a taut grin.

“I’ll take your word for it on the taste.” He squeezed her knee, and looking at his fat white hand on Keisha’s young dark skin made Marcie think of that English king, the one with all the wives she’d watched the TV show about. Old and fat and with a beautiful young girl he believed loved him. Didn’t end well for the women, if she remembered correctly.

“It’s so hot,” Keisha said, when the titters stopped. She leaned back in her chair and looked out over the water. “And muggy.”

“Welcome to the South,” Noah drawled. He’d been virtually dozing for the past hour or so, an old beached walrus splayed on his seat, but now he picked up a piece of corn bread and tore away a corner to eat despite Iris’s side eye. Noah could do with losing more than a pound or two himself. “Storms that come in fast and clear away as quick. Heat that clings to you like a needy child.”

“You’ll learn to move slower,” Virginia added, fanning herself with a coaster. “In this weather you don’t get a choice.”

“Oh, I love it. I can feel my whole body relaxing. But,” Keisha said, unfurling from her chair like a languid cat, “I also can’t resist the water.” She kissed William, chaste on the cheek, and then her shoulders were slipping free of her sundress, which slid to the floor, revealing a string bikini beneath it.

“I’m going in!” She was already pushing the ladder over the edge and climbing over the side, oblivious to the eyes on her body, William calling her back, and the look of disapproval on Virginia’s face as she declared, “Oh my!”

Keisha jumped from the boat’s edge, arms in the air, a whoop of joy carrying her down into the splash, and by the time the others were on their feet and at the railing she was breaking the surface, treading water, face full of delight.

“Be careful!” Noah called, leaning over the side. “We get ’gators sometimes!”